Monday, June 05, 2017

Marin residents opposed to the fluoridation of drinking water are urging their supporters to turn out for Tuesday’s meeting of the Marin Municipal Water District board, and board member Larry Bragman, who is sympathetic to their cause, says he will raise the issue.

“I don’t think that fluoride is necessary,” Bragman said. “In this day and age, the market provides so many fluoride products that there is really no need for it to be added to municipal systems anymore. I think it is a matter of consumer choice to begin with. I don’t think it needs to be mandated.”

The matter will come up when the board votes on whether to approve a purchase of chemicals for fluoridation and other purposes, which it does periodically.

Fluoridation opponents have been circulating an email with talking points, and the names and contact information for all of the board members.

“I’ve gotten a slew of emails,” said district board member Jack Gibson.

“As long as I’ve been on the board, this issue of fluoride has come up periodically,” said Gibson, who joined the board in 1995. “We have had many informational meetings on fluoride to talk it through with people. About six months ago we went through the same process. Why all of sudden it’s come back now is a little bit of a mystery to me.”

The fluoridation debate has raged nationally on and off since the 1940s. By the late 1960s opponents of fluoridation had become marginalized, associated with the John Birch Society. They were satirized in movies such as “Dr. Strangelove,” in which the mad Gen. Jack Ripper obsesses about the pollution of his precious body fluids.

“Unfortunately, there is still a stigma attached to questioning the wisdom of fluoride,” Bragman said. “Historically, the politics have been outlier politics, but I think the science has caught up to it. There have been some new studies that raise some real concerns about fluoride.”.......................